this week in dance

TWI-NY TALK: ANI TAJ NIEMANN

Ani Taj Niemann balances multiple roles for the Dance Cartel (photo by Stephen Elledge)

ONTHEFLOOR WITH THE DANCE CARTEL
Liberty Hall at the ACE Hotel
20 West 29th St. at Broadway
Saturday, March 2, April 6, May 4, June 1, $15-$20, 8:00
www.anitajniemann.com
www.thedancecartel.com

Last fall we raved about the energetic and exhilarating OntheFloor, a wild and crazy participatory performance by the Dance Cartel held in Liberty Hall downstairs at the Ace Hotel. For ninety minutes, a talented group of dancers moved and grooved through the dark space as the audience followed them around. Conceived and choreographed by Dance Cartel founder Ani Taj Niemann and codirected by Sam Pinkleton (Witness Relocation), OntheFloor returns to Liberty Hall on March 2, beginning a four-month residency that continues April 6, May 4, and June 1. You never know quite what’s going to happen or who’s going to show up at the fast-paced evening. Native New Yorker Taj recently gave twi-ny the lowdown as she prepared for the new set of performances.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of OntheFloor?

Ani Taj: The seed for OntheFloor was a short performance the Dance Cartel did at an art party called BjorkBall at Kent285 in Williamsburg, where we decided to move the crowd around us as we danced to create a shifting performance space. That idea was born largely out of my excitement about recent months I’d spent in Bahia, Brazil, where dance and music saturate everyday experience. In Bahia you get a lot of percussion in the streets, crowds dancing, spontaneous unison choreography in parades and concerts — people are constantly participating in rhythm and movement whether they like it or not. So when we got the offer to create an evening-length work based on the way we did BjorkBall, I thought I’d like to create an environment where people would have that same kind of permission to dance and participate, whether they’re dance savvy or not. Over time we’ve made a home for ourselves and our audiences at the Ace, but we keep it fresh with new material and guest artists for new collaborations.

twi-ny: How did you come upon the Ace?

Ani Taj: We really embrace the idea of making dance happen in unexpected places so that people outside of the usual dance crowd can have access to it. Ken Friedman (of the Spotted Pig and the Breslin restaurants) had the vision to bring us into Liberty Hall after seeing us at Kent285. There are challenges since the space is not intentionally outfitted for performance, but that’s part of the thrill of moving into new territory.

twi-ny: What do you tell dance fans who might be thinking twice about going to a show in a dark basement where they’ll have to move around for ninety minutes, being careful not to accidentally bump into the performers?

Ani Taj: Our MC offers a few simple guidelines at the top of the show, but mostly it’s common sense: if you see a body flying toward you, move; if you like the beat, groove. Part of the fun is that you’re being asked to be aware of your own body in space — as you would at a crowded concert or club.

The Dance Cartel returns to the Ace Hotel with the wild and crazy ONTHEFLOOR (photo by Sasha Arutyunova)

twi-ny: The show begins with a series of short acts from various genres, from comedy and video to participatory performance art. How are the acts chosen?

Ani Taj: Actually the evening you saw was unusual — that night there was a partnership with a publication that created that whole preshow. Usually we start off with just the Cartel, and sometimes there is a guest performer (usually musical) midway through the show. We are lining up our guests for the spring now — we’ll keep you posted. 😉

twi-ny: OntheFloor is the type of show where anything can happen. What’s the craziest thing you’ve experienced while performing the show?

Ani Taj: I’m happy to say there have been no major train wrecks, only happy convergences between unexpected groups of people. There was a great night where a dozen businessmen accidentally rolled in toward the end of our show, loved the feel, and they just cut loose and stayed dancing with us and our Brazilian drummers for a couple of hours. Our collaboration with Team Hotwheelz was also an incredibly gratifying, out-there experience; we cocreated a dance with two pioneer performers who happen to be in wheelchairs, Ali Stroker and Chelsie Hill, and then for that show we suddenly had multiple audience members in wheelchairs doing the Dougie with us.

twi-ny: You and Sam also teach the Dance Dancing Dance Company Class. Is that a class for anyone? What is the focus?

Ani Taj: The Dance Dancing Dance Company Company Class (DDDCCC) is very much a class for anyone — we’ve had everyone from trained dancers to sound designers to philosophy students, and the class is crafted to be both challenging and fun (yes, fun; dancing can be fun!) for people with disparate backgrounds. I think for both Sam and me, a sense of humor and an accelerated heart rate are important parts of the dance we want to see more of in the world. Students can expect to get low and sweaty and have a stupid good time but also to be challenged to capture the dynamics and rhythmic details of real dance sequences in the choreography portion of the class.

MYTH & TRANSFORMATION: PHAEDRA / THE SHOW (ACHILLES HEELS)

Athena (Blakely White-McGuire) and Achilles (Lloyd Mayor) in Richard Move’s THE SHOW (ACHILLES HEELS) (photo © Paula Court)

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
Thursday, February 28, 8:00; Saturday, March 2, 2:00; Sunday, March 3, 7:30, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.marthagraham.org

The Martha Graham Dance Company’s winter season at the Joyce, dubbed “Myth & Transformation,” kicked off on February 20 with a pair of productions that served as a microcosm for both the title of the season as well as for the two sides of the company itself. First up was Graham’s 1962 piece Phaedra, a tale of love, infidelity, and revenge featuring Blakely White-McGuire as Phaedra, Maurizio Nardi as Hippolytus, Tadej Brdnik as Theseus, and PeiJu Chien-Pott as Pasiphea, with Mariya Dashkina Maddux as Artemis and Xiaochuan Xie as Aphrodite, in a set composed of four structures designed by Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Graham’s Phaedra gained notoriety because two members of Congress denounced it as obscene when the work was on tour courtesy of State Department funds, but today it seems tame and rather plain. The trio of men show off their nearly impossible six-pack abs, Artemis shoots off unseen arrows, and Phaedra does curious things with a knife, but the piece feels old-fashioned and dry, as if it were dug up from a time capsule, and Robert Starer’s score sounds like it’s made up of leftovers from West Side Story. For those who think Graham’s work, which changed the face of modern dance for decades, is no longer as relevant as it once was, now cast into a category of legend and myth, Phaedra is a strong example.

Phaedra (Blakely White-McGuire) is manipulated by Aphrodite (Xiaochuan Xie) in Martha Graham Dance Company production of PHAEDRA (photo courtesy of Costas)

But The Show (Achilles Heels) is everything Phaedra is not, a tantalizing, dazzling piece that celebrates Graham’s continuing transformative influence on narrative and movement. Originally commissioned for the White Oak Dance Project in 2002, Richard Move’s unique take on the story of Helen of Troy (Katherine Crockett, in the role she created) and Achilles (Graham apprentice Lloyd Mayor, playing the part previously performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov at White Oak in 2002 and Rasta Thomas at the Kitchen in 2006) is filled with plenty of glitz and glamour as well as beautiful movement. The fanciful production features music by Arto Lindsay, new and old songs by Debbie Harry and Blondie, and a two-sided backdrop painted by artist Nicole Eisenman as well as piped-in dialogue that is mouthed by the lead actors from either previous incarnations of the show (which featured Misha as Achilles and Harry as Athena), or from old Hollywood sword and sandal epics. Move, who appeared as Graham in Martha@ . . . The 1963 Interview two years ago at DTW — and whose own grandmother was Miss Athens — turns the red-clad Athena (White-McGuire) into the host of a reality TV show in which the contestant Achilles answers Jeopardy!-like questions when not staring at himself in a mirror, playing with a mechanical dove, or being covered in glitter. As opposed to Phaedra, a relic from a bygone age, Move’s The Show (Achilles Heels) is a Greek tragedy for the twenty-first century, a tale of love and war told by a Graham devotee who has no boundaries. (Phaedra and The Show [Achilles Heels] will be presented at the Joyce on February 28 and March 2 and 3, with the roles of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus in the former played by Crockett, Lloyd Knight, and Ben Schultz, respectively, at some performances.)

HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: STRIPPED/DRESSED

Kate Weare will present GARDEN at 92nd St. Y “Stripped/Dressed” series (photo by Christopher Duggan)

92nd St. Y, Buttenwieser Hall
395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
February 22 – March 24, $20-$24
212-415-5500
www.92y.org

The Harkness Dance Festival’s annual “Stripped/Dressed” series kicks off this weekend, bringing in innovative choreographers who first discuss their working process and show excerpts — “stripped,” with no lights or costumes — then perform the same thing “dressed,” this time with artistic adornments. Curated by Doug Varone, the season begins February 22-24 as his company, Doug Varone and Dancers, presents the world premiere set to Julia Wolfe’s “Cruel Sisters” as part of its twenty-fifth anniversary. Dazzlingly original choreographer Faye Driscoll, whose work is consistently witty and challenging, will debut a new piece March 1-3 that examines dance making, space, and performance as ritual, followed March 8-10 by the Liz Gerring Dance Company’s She Dreams in Code, which was performed in fall 2011 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. On March 15-17, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, a Dance Company, which just blew away audiences at the Joyce with Torch, moves into Buttenwieser Hall to perform Gatekeepers, a 1999 work, originally commissioned by Philadanco, that deals with wounded soldiers. The season concludes March 22-24 with the Kate Weare Company’s Garden, in which two men and two women traipse through a mysterious natural world.

KAREN HARVEY DANCES: WETLANDS

Center for Performance Research
361 Manhattan Ave.
February 22-23, $12-$15, 7:30
www.karenharveydances.org
www.cprnyc.org

New York-based Karen Harvey Dances is dedicated to creating organic performances that integrate community and environment, incorporating the natural world into multimedia dance-theater projects. On February 22-23, artistic director Karen Harvey will lead the company in the world premiere of its first evening-length work, Wetlands, at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn. Investigating global interconnectedness and environmental responsibility, Wetlands is directed and choreographed by Harvey, who performs in it along with dancers Jin Ju Song-Begin, Elisa Vazquez, Andrew Broaddus, Thea Little, and Rachel Watson, set to music by Benjamin Garner, Little, and Broaddus and with a cappella vocals by René Kladzyk. The piece also features videos by an international group of dance artists, including Vazquez, Song-Begin, Emily Athena Abrahams, Anna Asplind, Silvia Balvin, Miguel Angel Guzman, Carolina Tabares Mendoza, Lina Puodziukaite, and Harvey. Movement, sound, visuals, and humanity come together to celebrate personal freedom and biodiversity as the company examines interdependence in today’s ever-more-complex world.

DANCE UNDER THE INFLUENCE 2013

John Heginbotham (photo by Liza_Volll, courtesy Jacobs Pillow Dance)

Dance Heginbotham will perform this weekend as part of Dance Under the Influence series at the Museum of Arts & Design (photo by Liza Voll, courtesy Jacobs Pillow Dance)

MOLISSA FENLEY, JOHN HEGINBOTHAM, DORMESHIA SUMBRY-EDWARDS, AND ZACK WINOKUR
Museum of Arts & Design, the Theater at MAD
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway
Monthly weekends February 22-23 through May 18, $20, 7:30
800-838-3006
www.madmuseum.org

The third season of the Museum of Arts and Design “Dance Under the Influence” series begins this weekend, as a diverse mix of contemporary dancers and choreographers gather at the Columbus Circle institution to perform works and then discuss them with the audience, sharing their artistic processes. Guest-curated by journalist, teacher, and writer Valerie Gladstone, the programs starts February 22-23 with Molissa Fenley, who will premiere Horizon, inspired by her recent trip to Hawaii, with music by Pauline Oliveros; Dance Heginbotham, the new company founded in 2011 by Brooklyn-based John Heginbotham, a veteran of Susan Marshall & Company and the Mark Morris Dance Group; Michael Jackson choreographer and swing and tap-dancer Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, who is part of Divine Rhythm Productions; and Zack Winokur, codirector of the Troupe with Michelle Mola. Next month’s installment takes place March 22-23 with ABT Studio Company, Decadence Theatre, David Neumann, and Basil Twist, while Jared Angle, Pontus Lidberg, Susan Marshall & Company, and Sara du Jour will be at MAD April 26-27. The series concludes May 17-18 with Doug Elkins, Rashaun Mitchell, Ramya Ramnarayan, and Blakely White-McGuire.

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY: MYTH AND TRANSFORMATION

The Martha Graham Dance Company rehearses for its Joyce season, which runs February 20 – March 3

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
February 20 – March 3, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.marthagraham.org

It’s been nearly twenty-two years since legendary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, one of the most influential people in the history of American modern dance, passed away, in 1991 at the age of ninety-six, but her company has continued her vast legacy with both old and new pieces that fit her vision. “A dance reveals the spirit of the country in which it takes root,” she wrote in 1937. “No sooner does it fail to do this than it loses its integrity and significance.” The Martha Graham Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber since 2005, will be at the Joyce from February 20 through March 3, presenting three programs called “Myth and Transformation,” which examine aspects of contemporary storytelling through movement. Program A pairs two Greek myths retold in provocative ways: Graham’s 1962 sexually driven Phaedra, with music by Robert Starer and sculptural décor by Isamu Noguchi, and 2002’s The Show (Achilles Heels), a dance-theater piece commissioned by the White Oak Dance Project and created, directed, and choreographed by Richard Move, with a score by Arto Lindsay, songs by Debbie Harry, and scenic art by Nicole Eisenman. Program B features three postwar Graham pieces that also relate Greek tales, beginning with 1946’s Cave of the Heart, inspired by the story of Medea and featuring music by Samuel Barber; 1947’s Night Journey, which examines the Oedipus myth from the point of view of Jocasta, with music by William Schumann; and a new, spare version of that same year’s Errand into the Maze, loosely based on the Theseus myth, with music by Gian Carlo Menotti, directed by Luca Veggetti and performed by Miki Orihara and others without the usual costumes and set design, as those elements were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Program C includes Cave of the Heart; the New York premiere of Doug Varone’s Lamentation Variation, set to Ravel, along with previous Variations by Yvonne Rainer (2012) and Bulareyaung Pagarlava (2009); the world premiere of Veggetti’s From the Grammar of Dreams, with music by Kaija Saariaho and text from Sylvia Plath; and an excerpt from Graham’s 1948 ensemble piece Diversion of Angels, with music by Norman Dello Joio and introductory film by Peter Sparling.

There will be several special events during the season, including a gala on February 21 featuring the “Moon” duet from Graham’s Canticle for Innocent Comedians and The Show (Achilles Heels), introduced by Patricia Field and with live musical accompaniment by Harry; a dance chat following the February 22 performance; a University Partner Showcase on February 23 with Graham classics performed by college and high school students; a preshow talk on February 28 led by Susan Thomasson; and the Fall and Recovery benefit on February 26, which will raise funds to help restore the costumes and sets destroyed by the hurricane, consisting of From the Grammar of Dreams; “Moon”; an excerpt from The Show (Achilles Heels); excerpts from Rust, a work-in-progress by Nacho Duato with music by Arvo Pärt; Graham’s 1935 Panorama performed by three dozen local high school students; and the 1935 Graham solo Imperial Gesture, reimagined by Kim Jones. Among the participants at the benefit will be Wendy Whelan and Ask la Cour (performing an excerpt from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain), Michelle Dorrance (improvisation), Maria Kowroski and Martin Harvey (George Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue), Irina Dvorovenko (Mikhail Fokine’s Dying Swan), David Neumann (DOSE), and Francesca Harper (TBA).

RONALD K. BROWN / EVIDENCE

INCIDENTS will be part of Evidence’s winter season at the Joyce (photo by Julia Cervantes)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
February 12-17, $10-$49
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.evidencedance.com

Brooklyn-based choreographer Ronald K. Brown refers to what his company does as “the ritual and journey of dance,” and they continue what has been an exciting and rewarding journey this week at the Joyce. Founded by Brown in 1985, Evidence, a Dance Company, which incorporates traditional West African rhythm and movement into its exploration of the African American experience, will be performing two programs February 12-17. The first is highlighted by the world premiere of Torch, which is dedicated to the life and memory of former Brown student Beth Young, who passed away in January 2012, along with 2005’s Order My Steps, set to the music of Terry Riley, Fred Hammond, and Bob Marley; 2005’s IFE/My Heart, with guest artist and Alvin Ailey veteran Matthew Rushing, who recently performed in Brown’s updated version of Grace for Ailey’s winter season at City Center; and excerpts from 1998’s Incidents, in which five women evoke slavery life, with music by the Staple Singers, Aretha Franklin, and Wunmi Olaiya. Program B includes 2001’s Walking Out the Dark, combining an original score by Philip Hamilton with text in addition to songs by Sweet Honey in the Rock, Francisco Mora, and M’Bemba Bangoura; and 1998’s Upside Down, an excerpt from Destiny, which examines community mourning, set to the title song by Fela Kuti and “Kun Fe Ko (The Uncertainty of Things)” by Oumou Sangare. There will be a Dance Chat following the February 13 show and a Joyce Pre-Show talk before the February 14 performance, led by Amy Kail. Following the Joyce presentation, Brown and Evidence will be back next month, performing the 1999 Philadanco commission Gatekeepers March 15-17 as part of the 92nd St. Y Harkness Dance Festival series “Stripped/Dressed.”